Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

Reporting contingent liabilities in relation to cancellation compensation for event organisers participating in phase one of the Events Research Programme

Baroness Barran: My Right Honourable Friend the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, The Rt Hon Oliver Dowden CBE MP, has made the following Statement:I am tabling this statement for the benefit of all members of this House to bring to their attention the Departmental Minute issued today that provides the House with notice of a series of small contingent liabilities created by my Department. This is in relation to a policy to compensate event organisers participating in phase one of the Events Research Programme in the event of their cancellation if public health concerns were to give rise.The Events Research Programme is running its first phase of 10-15 pilots in April and May to inform decisions around the safe removal of social distancing at Step 4 of the Roadmap. The pilots will be run across a range of settings, venues, and activities so that findings will support the full reopening of similar settings across multiple sectors.The government will provide compensation on a discretionary basis to event organisers should a pilot event be cancelled due to public health reasons.This compensation will be capped at £300,000 per event and will cover costs incurred in relation to participation in the programme only (e.g. admission of spectators), recognising the fact that these events would have taken place in line with roadmap restrictions should the programme not exist. In the case of the Liverpool events, as these have been put on specifically as part of the programme, the government will compensate organisers in full should an event be cancelled, but this will be capped at £300,000 in total across the Liverpool events.The government does not intend to cancel any event in the programme, however public safety comes first and therefore it is prudent to provide this assurance to the organisers assisting the government in reopening the economy.A copy of the Departmental Minute is being placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

Building Safety Monthly Update

Lord Greenhalgh: My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Robert Jenrick) has today made the following Written Ministerial Statement:I have undertaken to provide the House with a monthly building safety update.On 10 February I announced my five-point plan to bring an end to unsafe cladding and my officials are working at pace to develop and deliver the products, systems and legislation associated with these:Government will pay for the removal of unsafe cladding for leaseholders in all residential buildings 18 metres and over in EnglandA generous finance scheme to provide reassurance for leaseholders in buildings between 11 and 18 metres, ensuring they never pay more than £50 a month for cladding removalAn industry levy and tax to ensure developers play their partA world-class new safety regime to ensure a tragedy like Grenfell never happens againProviding confidence to this part of the housing market including lenders and surveyors We have now committed an unprecedented £5 billion investment in building safety. This will ensure taxpayer funding is targeted at the highest risk buildings in line with longstanding independent expert advice.Remediation statisticsWe continue to make good progress on the remediation of unsafe cladding, with around 95% of all high-rise residential buildings with unsafe ACM cladding identified by the beginning of last year now either remediated or started on site. Our expectation is that unsafe ACM remediation should be completed as soon as possible and by the end of 2021 at the latest.Full details of our progress with ACM cladding remediation can be found in the Department’s monthly Building Safety Data Release, which will next be published on 15 April on the Government’s website.Previous monthly Building Safety Data Releases can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/aluminium-composite-material-cladding#acm-remediation-data As at 31 March 2021, the Building Safety Fund Registration Statistics show that 1,075 decisions have been made on the basis that sufficient supporting information has now been received. Of these, 668 registered buildings are proceeding with a full application and 407 have been shown to be ineligible, mostly on grounds of not meeting the published criteria or because they do not have unsafe cladding systems in place. The total amount of funding allocated is £319.2 million (including social sector) correct at 31/03/2021. Full details can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/remediation-of-non-acm-buildings#building-safety-fund-registration-statistics

Department for Work and Pensions

Extending COVID Local Support Measures

Baroness Stedman-Scott: My Right Honourable Friend, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Dr Thérèse Coffey MP) has made the following Written Statement.The Covid Winter Grant Scheme has enabled Local Authorities in England to provide targeted support to families and individuals, keeping them warm and well fed over the winter period, with the principal focus being on disadvantaged children.The initial scheme was issued at £170 million and was due to conclude at the end of March 2021. In the first two months of the scheme, covering December 2020 and January 2021, Local Authorities spent over £86 million, with 94% awarded to support families with children and 96% used on the provision of food and support with utility bills. In the same period, nearly 2.4 million awards had been made to vulnerable households through the scheme. The scheme was subsequently extended with an additional £59.1 million of support and was due to conclude this Friday 16th April.Recognising that some restrictions on the economy continue, we are extending the scheme until the 20th June 2021 with funding of £40 million and re-naming it the Covid Local Support Grant. This brings the scheme in line with the Prime Minister’s roadmap out of lockdown as on the 21 June, provided we continue to pass the four steps needed to progress through the roadmap, most of the remaining restrictions will be lifted.All conditions of the grant continue, as does the allocation methodology.

Department of Health and Social Care

COVID-19 Vaccination Update

Lord Bethell: My Rt Hon Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock) has made the following written statement: I wish to inform the House of actions we are taking to improve uptake of vaccines across the adult social care sector. In February 2021, we published the UK COVID-19 Vaccines Delivery Plan setting out the significant programme of work underway to drive vaccine uptake, including actions to improve access and to address the concerns of those who may be hesitant to receive the vaccine. We have been working to make the vaccination accessible to people living and working in care homes. Vaccination teams have visited all older age care homes in England and are running a minimum four-visit schedule for each. For those workers who may not have been present when the vaccination team visited the home, access via other vaccination services has been available. We also opened the National Booking Service for seven weeks so that frontline social care workers could book their own appointments, and care home workers can now arrange vaccination directly through their GP. We have worked hard to address concerns among the adult social care workforce by delivering an extensive communications programme, running targeted advertisements and issuing a stakeholder toolkit containing regularly updated Q&As, guidance and communications materials. Positive messaging using influencers, leaders and care home workers who have already been vaccinated has boosted confidence and tackled misinformation, as have briefings with different faith groups who have become ambassadors for getting a vaccine. We continue to do everything we can to increase vaccine uptake. We have targeted support at older adult care homes where vaccine uptake is low, such as in London. As of 4 April 2021, vaccine uptake among eligible workers in older adult care homes in London is 68%, compared to 82% in the South West. Local efforts, by employers, local authorities, public health teams and others, supplement this government’s support. Despite efforts, vaccine uptake amongst care home workers is not consistently at the level we know from SAGE advice is needed to minimise the risk of outbreak, which is a minimum vaccination rate of 80% staff, and 90% of residents within each home and this level must be maintained. Only 53% of older adult homes in England are currently meeting this recommendation. It is imperative that together we now take every step necessary to reduce the risk of spreading the virus to those most at risk from COVID-19 and those who care for them. We must protect people living in care homes, and we must protect the workforce who perform such a vital role. Vaccination is a safe, effective way of preventing the spread of COVID-19. It is therefore right that the Government acts now to ensure that those working and assisting in older adult care homes are vaccinated to protect everyone in these settings. From today, we are consulting on taking steps to require care providers to deploy only staff who have been vaccinated within older adult care homes. This measure would be intended to protect the people most at risk in our society - around 90% of those who died from COVID-19 were people over 70. Making vaccination a condition of deployment in older adult care home provider in this way, would help to further protect older people living in care homes, who are among the most vulnerable to Covid-19, and ultimately save lives. A five-week consultation launches today to help inform decision-making around how the change could be implemented and whether respondents think it will be beneficial. This will include areas such as potential impact on staff, safety and who could be exempt. Staff, providers, stakeholders, residents and their families are being urged to take part to have their views heard with an outcome expected by this summer. I will provide an update to the House, following the completion of the consultation.

Treasury

Notification of contingent liability – mortgage guarantee scheme

Lord Agnew of Oulton: My honourable friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen) has today made the following Written Ministerial Statement.It is normal practice when a government department proposes to undertake a contingent liability in excess of £300,000 and for which there is no statutory authority, for the Minister concerned:to present a departmental Minute to parliament, giving particulars of the liability created and explaining the circumstances; andto refrain from incurring the liability until fourteen parliamentary sitting days after the issue of the Minute, except in cases of special urgency. I am writing to notify Parliament of a contingent liability that has been created by the government from the introduction of the new mortgage guarantee scheme. The scheme will be open to new mortgages submitted by participating lenders from 19 April 2021, but the liability will not be incurred until lenders start to submit mortgages to the scheme, which is not expected until May at the earliest.By way of background, the mortgage guarantee scheme was announced at the Budget on 3 March 2021. The scheme will provide a guarantee to lenders across the UK who offer mortgages to people with a deposit of 5% on homes with a value of up to £600,000. Under the scheme all buyers will have the opportunity to fix their initial mortgage rate for at least five years should they wish to. The scheme, which will be available for new mortgages up to 31 December 2022, will increase the availability of mortgages on new or existing properties for those with small deposits. The guarantee will be valid for up to seven years after the mortgage is originated.Exposure against this contingent liability would take place in the event that the sum of commercial fees paid by lenders would not be sufficient to cover calls on the guarantee. There will be a cap on the size of the government’s contingent liability under the scheme of £3.9 billion.Authority for any expenditure required under this liability will be sought through the normal procedure. HM Treasury have approved this proposal.I will also lay a minute today on this matter.